


A Year of Not Being Married

by Sproid



Category: Gunless (2010)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, F/M, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 12:55:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1348198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sproid/pseuds/Sproid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jane first came to Barclay’s Brush, she had a husband, a dream, and a plan.</p><p>The husband scarpered soon after he found out about the dream and the plan. It hurt, but Jane was more than ready to be rid of his drunken temper and worthless hide. Out of the three things she’d arrived here with, she’d kept the best two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Year of Not Being Married

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Deputy for the last minute beta and encouragement, both of which are very much appreciated! Anything which still isn't right is entirely due to my own sleepiness, and rush to get this done on time. 
> 
> Incorrectly named horses are a distinct possibility.

When Jane first came to Barclay’s Brush, she had a husband, a dream, and a plan.

The husband scarpered soon after he found out about the dream and the plan. It hurt, but Jane was more than ready to be rid of his drunken temper and worthless hide. Out of the three things she'd arrived here with, she'd kept the best two. 

The little town grew in the meantime, and Jane started making that plot of land her own. 

The first winter, it got so cold that the ground was hard as rock for a full month after the last snow. The farm survived though, even if it didn’t thrive. It struggled on after an invasion of rabbits brought close by grain in the town, made it through the lack of water in the dusty summer, and just about managed to produce a few small cabbages in time for the market.

It even lived through the arrival of an American gunman with no aptitude for either farming or windmill construction, and his horse, who had no concept of hard work as it applied to agriculture.

Jane wasn’t sure about the gunslinger, but given enough time, she thought she could bring the horse up to snuff.

\--

Aristotle would say that Jane and Sean were married. They’d been living together since Sean arrived, and they sure as hell were getting up to most of the same things that married folk did. According to Aristotle, and therefore Alice, who put a lot of stock by Aristotle, they were married.

Jane disagreed. She’d been married once before. It had been full of broken promises from a man who professed to love her. What she had with Sean was nothing like that, and she was none too keen to put the same name to it.

Sean made no promises, only commitments which he had so far honoured. There had been no declarations of love, from either of them, but Jane would far rather put her trust in Sean’s continued presence on the farm than any fancy words. 

There was never any cause for Jane to pull the ladder up, either. When it came to an argument, they could both be pretty hot-headed. The closest Sean came to violence these days though was stomping outside and kicking a fencepost until he missed and his boot flew off. 

Marriage also came with a set of expectations bound in law, somewhat looser these days than in the past, especially in their little town, but there nonetheless. Jane had worked hard to earn her place here. She had no intention of marrying Sean and losing her rights to the farm in one fell swoop. If she ever signed any of it over to him, it would be when she chose to do so, and only after he’d earned the right to half of it. 

There was a way to go before that day.

He’d only just paid off his debt for the carrot.

\--

The townsfolk were one of the reasons that Jane stayed after Stuart left. For a brief period of time, she’d considered selling the land and moving on, going somewhere no-one knew her to talk about her behind her back. 

Gossip was inevitable, but very little of it had turned out to be malicious. Everyone here knew what it was like to start from scratch and that, sometimes, the things you were trying to build got torn apart by the first rough storm. 

That first spring, Jack and Larry had turned up to offer their help. The cabin was new and badly needed waterproofing again, the ground needed turning over before she could plant anything; and Peaches was in desperate need of a good brush down, which Jane just hadn’t had chance to do in amongst everything else.

Determined to prove that she could manage, Jane had turned them down. Jack and Larry, bless them, tipped their hats and wished her luck, leaving her to face her vast expanse of land by herself.

After she fell asleep in church the following Sunday, Jane braced herself to refuse more offers of help. Instead, Alice and Beatrice came around at the beginning of the week to drop off pies, fresh vegetables, and strawberry crumble, heavenly in their own right, even more so when Jane had been living off bread and cheese before she collapsed into bed in the evenings. 

If it hadn’t been for their visits, Jane would have been a rake by the end of the planting season. Instead, she found herself broader in the shoulders and stronger in the arms, but well-fed, and with most of her clothes still a good fit. She’d also gained two friends to drink tea with on Monday mornings.

People had stuck by Jane, and she’d decided to stick with them, too. Now she had a standing invitation to Angus’ and Beth’s every Wednesday, which came with a welcome as warm as the food straight from the oven, and she could walk through the town greeting everyone by name and with a smile.

\--

Jane wasn’t surprised when Sean asked her to marry him. He’d lived by a code all his life, adhering to its guidelines of right and wrong. Marriage was the ‘right’ option, and Jane knew it was what he wanted, too. An outlaw he may be, but he wasn’t exactly the hardened criminal the name suggested.

No, the question didn’t surprise her. The way the kitchen walls closed in around her though, as all of her logical reasons for refusal fled her mind, was something of a shock.

The roof was warm with the spring sunshine, a fresh breeze lifting her hair and clearing her head. Jane gathered her shawl around her and stared at the hills, just breathing.

Sean came out five minutes later, and stood a few paces away from the ladder. Jane’s relief faded quickly when he said nothing and just looked up from below his hat, expression hidden. For the first time since he’d moved in, she was struck with a fear that this might be the day he left.

Then he called up, “I’m going to head to the store, see if I can get Carl to sell us some more of those candles to keep off the bugs. You think of anything else we need?”

Jane couldn’t make herself form words any more than she could keep the smile of relief off her face, both of which seemed to be plenty for Sean, because he nodded and smiled back before he set off. When he was out of sight, Jane leant back on her hands and stared at the sky, drawing in deep breaths until she felt like she could think again.

It was something like an hour before Sean’s hat, and then the rest of him, came back over the ridge. He carried his package of candles inside, then came back outside, without his hat, to stand at the bottom of the ladder again. The uncertain way he eyed the roof was plain for Jane to see, as was the way he opened his mouth to ask and then shut it again. 

The rush of fondness banished the last of Jane’s anxieties, and she patted the space next to her as she told him, “Get up here.”

When he settled down next to her, he reached into his jacket and brought out a neatly-wrapped package. It smelt like Beatrice’s fruit cake, and turned out to be Beatrice’s extra-special brandy-soaked fruit cake. Laughing, Jane leaned against Sean’s shoulder, and tucked her arm through his, the last of the worry fading when he didn’t pull away.

“Thank you,” she said around the first bite.

“Any time.”

They were silent as Jane ate the rest of the cake, splitting the last of it into two and dropping half of it into Sean’s hand. It disappeared fast, and then Sean’s hand was back, curling gently around hers.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel…” 

He trailed off, and when Jane lifted her head to look at him, he lifted his shoulders slightly and shook his head. 

“Well, I don’t rightly know what you felt, but the way you bolted up here sure wasn’t good. So I’m sorry. I won’t ask again.”

Squeezing his hand tight, Jane tried to work out how to say ‘thank you’ without sounding too callous. There didn’t seem to be a way, but Sean nodded like he’d heard it anyway.

“It’s not that I don’t want to marry you,” Jane said after a moment.

“All right,” Sean said, nodding again, before he turned his gaze back to the horizon. 

Jane settled her head back on his shoulder. Sean didn’t say things he didn’t mean.

“I might never say ‘yes’, you know,” she murmured, as the breeze picked up and tried to get through her shawl.

Sean freed his arm from hers, and slipped it around her shoulders, warm and heavy and keeping the wind off her neck. “If you tell me ‘no’, are you likely to accompany that with a shot to the gut or anything of the sort?”

Just about managing not to laugh, Jane replied, “Not unless you’ve done something else to warrant it.”

“Then I reckon I’ll stick around anyway. Long as that’s alright with you.”

Jane reached up to tug on his wrist and draw his arm further around her. “I think I can probably cope, yes.”

\--

Living with Sean wasn’t without its difficulties. The cabin might have been built for two people, but Jane had spent a long time in it by herself. As for Sean, well, he’d spent most of his life roaming across a country that might not measure up to Canada, but wasn’t exactly small. Sometimes he looked like he was about to rattle off the walls. 

On days where Jane was noticing his presence in her space already, it drove them both to distraction. It wasn’t that she wanted him to leave. She just didn’t exactly want him around all the time either.

A slow spell in summer came, and Jane wandered outside one evening to find Sean sitting on the fence, watching the horizon steadily.

Climbing half-way up the fence next to him, and holding onto his shoulder to steady herself, she murmured, “What are you thinking?”

“Reckon it’s been too long since I slept beneath the stars,” he replied. As his hand came up to close around her wrist, he leaned back until his shoulder rested against her stomach, warm through the thin cotton of his shirt and Jane’s dress. “Been thinking,” he said after a few moments.

“You?” Jane teased. Sean tilted his head back to narrow his eyes at her, and Jane pressed a kiss to his forehead with a grin.

“There’s occasions I forget why I like you,” Sean said, facing the horizon again, although not before Jane saw the smile flicker across his face. “Anyway. Neither you or me is doing so well cooped up in the same house all the time, and it’s been near enough to a year since I spent any time just riding. I figured maybe I’d take Charlie, and that shotgun Larry gave me, get reacquainted with the land, maybe bring back some rabbit for us to eat.”

Without thinking, Jane leaned down to wrap her arms around Sean’s stomach, so filled with joy at the idea of time alone that she forgot they weren’t all that well balanced on the fence. After a squawk on her part and a curse on Sean’s, they ended up in the dust with Charlie and Peaches looking curiously down at them, until they decided that their humans were beyond help and wandered away.

Rolling over with a groan, Sean propped himself up on his elbows next to Jane, and shook his hair away from his face. “You look mighty pleased to be getting rid of me,” he accused.

Still grinning, Jane wrapped her arms around his neck. Despite his apparent disgruntlement, Sean let himself be pulled down so Jane could plant a kiss on him. “Let’s go inside,” she murmured against his lips. “I’ll show you how pleased I am.”

\--

Sean rode out early the next morning, all dressed up in the old trousers and waistcoat he’d come to town in, with the shotgun poking out of one of Charlie’s saddle bags. Jane stretched her arms out and looked up at the sky, spinning slowly to enjoy the space, before she went back inside to make a pot of tea and bask in the quiet happiness that came with having no-one else around.

A day doing nothing was just what she needed - but no more. The following morning, she rode into town to pick up some fenceposts from Larry, who had an excess of them after the tree-cutting spree he’d been on recently. Jane wasn’t sure what he had against trees, exactly, but blowing up that old stump had only satisfied him for a couple of months. Beatrice didn’t seem to mind too much; or at least, she thought the extra money was compensation enough.

Alice came over to help haul the posts onto the cart, and it transpired that there was a poker game being planned at the Doc’s house in the evening, matchsticks as the stake, food and drink provided by Beth, company by the lovely ladies of the town. “Come on,” Alice said, with a mischievous smile on her face that Jane still wasn’t quite used to seeing on a schoolteacher. “You know Beth makes the best moonshine.”

“And I’ll be cursing her for it for days,” Jane replied with a grin. “What time are we starting?”

It was a lively evening, eight of them around Beth’s table, laughing and sharing the stories that they’d missed over the harsh winter and busy spring. With moonshine passed around the table with every hand, Jane’s glass stayed stayed full throughout the evening, in contrast to her ever-decreasing pile of matchsticks. 

Beth cleaned them all out, in the end, with a smug smile on her face as she claimed the pile of matchsticks. Jane downed the last of her drink, leaned back in her chair, and watched with lazy enjoyment as Alice and Beatrice demanded another game next week.

Too wobbly to go home, Jane bunked in the shed overnight with Beatrice for company. After a few giggled conversations, a yelled “Shut up” from the house had them biting their tongues until Beth had gone to sleep, at which point they carried on until tiredness and drink overtook them.

The next morning, Jane cursed the sun and the bumps in the road as she rode back - slowly - to the farm. In the afternoon though, after several pints of water had banished her headache, she found herself smiling and humming to herself as she did the odd bits of clearing up around the place, getting ready to replace the fence posts tomorrow.

\--

Three days later, Sean came back covered in almost as much dust as Charlie was, one trouser leg ripped across the knee, grass stains on his waistcoat, with the saddle pocket in which his ammunition had been stowed looking decidedly empty. 

Hanging from the saddle was one scrawny rabbit, barely the size of his hand.

“Thought you went rabbit hunting,” Jane remarked, trying to stop her smile escaping.

Sean pushed back his hat. Looking a mite aggrieved, he grumbled, “Damn things are a lot faster than you’d think.”

“Oh, really?” Jane took another look at the size of it, and couldn’t stop a laugh. Sean followed her gaze, smiled ruefully, and shook his head as he dismounted.

Then his eyes went to her sleeve, and the bandage which was wrapped around her upper arm. A flicker of concern crossed his face, but he stayed back, and started loosening Charlie’s saddle straps. “Thought you were taking it easy,” he called over his shoulder. “You get into a fight with Peaches?”

“I was putting up fenceposts,” Jane said.

“Did you forget to put the pointy end in the ground?” 

Jane glared at his back. “The flat ends are a lot sharper than they look.”

After a moment, he turned around, and with a shake of his head, muttered, “What a pair we are.” 

Laughing, Jane came over to press a kiss to his dust-streaked cheek, and helped him give Charlie a quick brush down before getting Sean inside for a bath. Probably a quick rub off would do the trick for Sean, too, but as pleased as she was to see him again, Jane didn’t quite have the energy for that at the moment.

They were in bed well before the sun was down, drawing the drapes to keep out the low light and then climbing under the sheets with identical yawns. Jane curled around Sean’s back, wrapped one arm around his waist and tucked her nose into the back of his neck, before letting his warmth and still slightly-dusty scent lull her into sleep.

In the middle of the night, Jane woke up, momentarily disoriented by the presence of another person in the bed. Then she remembered, and shifted so she was up against Sean’s back again, sighing and closing her eyes as she stroked her hand idly over his stomach. She was halfway back to sleep when his hand came up to cover hers, and he mumbled, “You’d best know, I haven’t been asleep long enough to be up for anything energetic yet. You’re going to be disappointed if you’re expecting otherwise.”

Stilling her hand, Jane shook her head and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “Just enjoying you being here,” she murmured. Sean stroked his thumb over the back of her hand, once, then again, and then Jane drifted off before she could count any more.

In the morning, she awoke with a yawn that demanded to be let out, and left her with limbs that yearned to be stretched. When she uncurled from around Sean to indulge, he stirred too, echoing her movements with a long sigh and then catching her hand to draw it around to his front.

“Good morning,” Jane said, spreading her hand out low on his stomach, grinning into his shoulder when he rumbled out a sound of encouragement. “Did you want something in particular?”

“If you’re done teasing, I could stand to do something energetic now,” he murmured back, drawing her hand up to his mouth to press a kiss to her palm, then draw his tongue across it while Jane shivered at the heat. Then he moved their hands down to close around his length, hot and hard and most definitely up for it now. He groaned at the first stroke, shuddered when Jane found her way through his hair to nuzzle at the soft spot behind his ear, and by the time she’d finished working her way down his neck, he spilled at the first touch of her teeth to his skin.

After he’d caught his breath and wiped their hands clean, he rolled over to stroke Jane’s cheek in that gentle way that made her chest feel tight every time. Then he kissed her, and as he slid his fingers into her body, murmured a gruff, “Missed you,” into her ear. Jane slid her hands into his hair and tugged him back around for another kiss, shaking when his free hand found her breast, and then again when her release hit her.

Afterwards, she nudged her toes against his shin, and when he looked at her, told him, “I missed you, too, you big oaf.”

\--

The middle of summer brought rain, followed by more hot days in the run up to harvesting. With the windmill working like a dream, the corn grew tall enough that Jane couldn’t see over the top of some of them, even when she stood on tiptoe. The pumpkins were on the smaller side, but when she lined them up on the market table, the children all clamoured around to haggle with her, and walked away chattering about their plans for carving them up.

Jane didn’t realise she was smiling until Beatrice came over to give her one of the few leftover pastries, crumbs from which escaped from her grin when she tried to eat it.

“Damn,” she muttered, brushing them off her dress.

With a soft smile, Beatrice said, “I don’t think I’ve seen you look so happy since you arrived.”

“I am,” Jane said. “It’s just a few pumpkins that no-one really needs, and some corn to liven meals up a bit, but I feel… useful.”

“And proud, too, I hope,” Beatrice said. “Those kids haven’t been that excited since Jonathan let them try his helmet on. That corn is going to disappear at a rate, too, I’d bet. You’re probably Alice’s favourite person; she’s been longing for corn since the last delivery of it turned out to be half rotten.”

Grinning again, Jane reached out to take Beatrice’s arm, and lean her head against her friend’s as she soaked in the feeling of accomplishment.

\--

Mice invaded the shed in autumn, seeking out the dried husks that Jane hadn’t thought to get rid of. Sean suggested a cat, and picked one up the when he rode out to the next town with Jonathan, on one of his now regular excursions away from Barclay’s Brush. In the meantime, Jane acquired a kitten from Adell, who was giving them away to spare the construction workers' camp from having more cats than rodents.

The adult cat, as soon as Sean let it out of the bag, hissed at him and ran into the shed to glare at him from a shelf. While Sean was glaring back, the tiny tabby ran down Jane’s dress and over the ground to wind itself around Sean’s ankles. The look on his face when it pawed at his trousers and meowed insistently at him was priceless. Jane spent the next few weeks hiding her smile whenever she looked at Sean and found the kitten curled up in the crook of his arm, or poised on his shoulder to bat at his hair.

The kitten turned out to be no good at all as a mouser, but it soothed Sean's grumpiness over winter. Outside, the ginger barn cat kept the mice down, avoided Sean like the plague, and brushed up against Jane for strokes it pretended it didn’t want. It was probably only pleased to see her because she brought it water and a few bits of extra food. Even so, she couldn’t help but be pleased to see it in return.

Winter wasn’t easy, with Sean cursing about how any decent country shouldn’t try to freeze its citizens for months at a time. It was a sentiment Jane could share - even a decent fire couldn’t keep the house safe from the wind which got through every not-quite-sealed gap. There wasn’t much to be done about it, although going to bed early on the bitterest nights, to drag the sheets around themselves and make some heat of their own, solved the problem for a while.

They argued because it was that or go stir-crazy, but that got old fast. Then they did repairs to the cabin, to the shed, to the furniture; they played with the cats, until the cats grew tired, and curled up with each other by the fire; they cleared the snow from outside the house, even if more was going to fall the next day. When the sun was shining and the wind wasn’t strong, Jane threw the occasional snowball Sean’s way, and grinned smugly when his return fire sailed past her. He might be a crack shot with a pistol, but snow just wasn’t his thing.

By the time it started warming up, the cabin felt cozy on more days than it felt cramped. Sean was more likely to sit in front the fire with the kitten on his lap than he was to complain about the cold. Jane grew used to seeing him there, and knew that if she sat next to him, he’d put his arm around her and read to her while she settled her head on his shoulder.

When the snow finally got around to melting and the ground unfroze, they’d almost got used to it. Not so much that Sean didn’t take the first opportunity to join the supply run to the next town though, while Jane wrapped up against the last of the chill and set about honing the tools in the shed back into condition. She had plans for the farm this year, and now that the worst of the weather was done, it was time to get started on them.

\--

On a day late in spring, when the windmill turned steadily in the wind, and the furrowed ground was just starting to show hints of greenery, Jane took Peaches into town to visit Beatrice, and buy two slices of the fruitcake which had been soaking in brandy since Christmas. Back at the farm, she climbed up onto the roof, and let the sun sink into her bones while she waited for Sean to come back from wherever he’d got to with Jonathan today.

After he’d put Charlie safely away with Peaches, Sean came to stand at the bottom of the ladder, climbing up when Jane answered the tilt of his head with a smile and a nod. 

“Windmill looks good,” Sean said, as he took a seat next to her. “Reckon it’ll keep turning for as long as this farm is here, if we treat it right.”

“We did a good job with it,” Jane replied. She passed Sean a slice of cake, and unwrapped the other one for herself, ignoring his curious look while she took the first bite.

“This mighty fine cake in honour of anything?” Sean asked.

Jane leaned into him so she could wrap her arm around his waist and shuffle closer. His arm settled on her shoulder, and she smiled.

“It’s in honour,” she said, letting her cheek rest on his shoulder, “Of a year of not being married.”

She savoured the next mouthful of cake while Sean chewed on his.

“It’s been a whole year since...?"

Jane nodded.

“Well now. Isn’t that something.”

“It could be. Not that I’ve decided what my answer is yet,” Jane warned.

Sean turned his hand palm-up on his thigh, and when Jane placed hers in it, curled his fingers around hers. “Alright,” he said. “You had something in mind?”

“I did. It’s been a year, and you paid off all your debt last month and, well, you’re still here -”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he interrupted, squeezing her hand. “I thought we’d got that part worked out.”

“We do,” Jane said, and squeezed back. It was just different, seeing it, than knowing it. “Anyway, you’re here, and I’m still here, and we’ve been here together for a year. I thought we could make it a tradition, a not-married anniversary, or something.”

When Sean was silent, Jane lifted her head, and found him smiling softly at her. Narrowing her eyes at him, she asked, “Isn’t this the part where you say ‘What is wrong with you people’?”

Shaking his head, Sean leaned in to kiss her slowly, lips warm against hers and his hand gentle in her hair. Drawing back, he shook his head, and stroked his thumb over her face. “Same thing that’s wrong with me, I reckon,” he murmured. “I’d say it’s a fine idea.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Sean nodded.

Jane pulled him in for another kiss, then wrapped her arms around him and squeezed until he grumbled in her ear, “Y’know, breathing is something a man likes to be able to do now and again.”

Letting go, she said, “Sorry.” She didn’t quite manage to stop smiling, so she probably didn’t look very sorry. Sean didn’t seem to want her to actually let go either, because he gathered her close again straight away. 

Resting her chin on his shoulder, Jane gazed out over the farm, and settled against Sean with a sigh. She could look forward to doing all of this all over again, every year, from now on.


End file.
